If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Neil PeartRead
For me, drum elements are like hieroglyphics - I think of a certain physical figure, and a little three-dimensional glyph will appear in my mind as I'm playing.
Interpretation
The quote compares drum elements to hieroglyphics, suggesting that each drumbeat represents a physical representation or idea in the mind of the musician.
In this quote, Neil Peart illustrates how drum elements evoke vivid imagery and thoughts in his mind while playing. Just as hieroglyphics serve as symbols that convey deeper meanings, the rhythms and beats of drumming translate into visual and spatial representations for Peart, allowing him to connect art and music in a unique and expressive way.
In practice
In a speech about creativity in art, one could use this quote to highlight how musicians visualize their music.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring.
Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.
It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways.
What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.
I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.
Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves.
All the arts are based on the presence of man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence. Photography affects us like a phenomenon in nature, like a flower or a snowflake whose vegetable or earthly origins are an inseparable part of their beauty.
Writers end up writing stories-or rather, stories' shadows-and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough
A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.
People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.
I believe that stories are incredibly important, possibly in ways we don't understand, in allowing us to make sense of our lives, in allowing us to escape our lives, in giving us empathy and in creating the world that we live in.
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